....While visiting her family in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve 1969, Carol McCain was driving alone in snowy, icy conditions. Approaching an intersection on an isolated country road, she skidded and collided with a telephone pole, was thrown from the car into the snow, and went into shock. Some time later she was found and taken to Bryn Mawr Hospital; she had two smashed legs, a broken pelvis, broken arm, and ruptured spleen. She spent six months in the hospital, and over the course of the next two years had 23 operations as well as extensive physical therapy. She did not tell her husband about the accident in her letters to him, believing he already had enough to worry about, and the U.S. State Department told a surgeon who operated upon her not to mention anything to the press, lest it worsen the treatment for John McCain. Businessman and POW advocate Ross Perot paid for her medical care and she remained grateful to him: "The military families are in Ross's heart and in his soul ... There are millions of us who are extremely grateful to Ross Perot." Years after John McCain found out about Perot's help, he said "we loved him for it." She was interviewed on the CBS Evening News in 1970, and said that Christmas had no meaning for her without her husband present, but that she carried on with it for the sake of their children.
The McCains were reunited upon his release from captivity on March 14, 1973. She was now four inches shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier than when he had last seen her; he was also visibly hampered by his injuries and the mistreatment he had endured from the North Vietnamese. The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan, and the two couples became friendly. Carol McCain worked for Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign in Florida, as he sought the Republican Party nomination.
During John McCain's assignment as Executive Officer and Commanding Officer of the VA-174 squadron located at Naval Air Station Cecil Field outside Jacksonville, Florida the McCains' marriage began to falter; he had extramarital affairs.
John McCain's next assignment was to the Senate Liaison Office within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs. The McCains separated briefly, then rejoined. His job was aided by an active social life the couple conducted, entertaining Navy, government, and other people three to four nights a week at their Alexandria, Virginia home. During this time she worked for Congressman John H. Rousselot. By 1979, the McCains were still living together. In April 1979, John McCain met and began a relationship with Cindy Lou Hensley, an Arizona special education teacher and Hensley & Co. heiress.
John McCain pushed to end the marriage; Carol McCain was described by friends as being in shock from the developments. The McCains stopped cohabiting in January 1980; John McCain filed for a divorce in February 1980, which Carol McCain accepted at that time. When asked by a friend what had gone wrong, she said, "It's just one of those things." The uncontested divorce became official in Fort Walton Beach, Florida on April 2, 1980.
John McCain would later say, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine." Carol McCain would later say: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." ..Ross Perot would later say, "After came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona and the rest is history."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_McCain
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